The town will once again look to a MassWorks grant to fix one of its roads that is in need of repair—Stow Road. The heavily traveled 3-mile route from Mass. Ave. to the town line would be milled, leveled, shaped, and paved, according to Department of Public Works Director Tim Kilhart. Although the road doesn’t look bad from a car window, Kilhart told the Press the problems are evident on closer inspection. It was paved with crumb rubber in 2019 to hold it together, but “that was just a Band-Aid,” he said.
Kilhart said he is applying for $1 million, the maximum amount allocated to any one town, and the same amount the town received for work done on Slough Road last year. He added that there is a lot of competition for the grants, which are only given to towns with fewer than 7,000 people. This year, only 12 grants were awarded through MassWorks.
Without MassWorks grants, the town would have to save up Chapter 90 funds for years to do larger road maintenance projects, Kilhart said. Each year the state allocates a fixed amount of money to fund the Chapter 90 program, and every municipality in Massachusetts receives a percentage of the fund based on road miles, population, and employment figures. The money can be used for any transportation-related need a town chooses.
Despite years of lobbying by the Massachusetts Municipal Association for an increase in Chapter 90 funding, the allocation has remained at $200 million since 2012, except for 2015 when an additional $100 million was added. On March 9, the MMA sent a letter to the state Legislature asking it to raise annual funding to $300 million so that towns could keep up with rising construction costs. According to the letter, a MMA survey on gaps in local road funding statewide showed that $600 million would be needed annually to fund municipal road and bridge projects. The letter also asked for a multiyear funding authorization to “avoid a process that lurches from year to year.” This would allow towns to plan for multiyear projects or to create long-term road maintenance plans.
Those requests appear to have fallen on deaf ears. On March 30, the Massachusetts House of Representatives voted once more to fund Chapter 90 at the same $200 million level. It also approved an additional $150 million for specific transportation-related programs, as it did last year. Those programs are less flexible; they allow for small bridge repairs, improvements to state roads, public transportation projects, and so-called complete streets, to provide safe and accessible options for all modes of travel, including walking and biking. The Chapter 90 funding bill is now in the Massachusetts Senate, and if approved, would go to Governor Baker for signing, typically in July.
Meanwhile, Kilhart will continue to rely on MassWorks grants for his list of larger road projects. If this year’s application is accepted, work on Stow Road would begin in 2023 and would take about a month to complete with only minor road closures. If the grant doesn’t come through, he would apply again next year. The Slough Road grant took two tries, but Kilhart said grant application readers reached out to him with information on what needed to be improved. “We’re keeping our fingers crossed,” he said.
